White House and Green Grass

by Anton Wills-Eve

The question under discussion at our seminar was how far would the United States get in saving energy if it was green for five years. Well the following is one theory.

“I bet it ain’t easy being green,” said the White House to its lawn, “How do you manage it?”

The grass cupped its blades in its golf-green like symmetrical sheaths and browsed for several minutes. Then, with one huge “Whoosh”, for its voice was necessarily loud, it replied, “Well, to me it happens naturally, but if you want to be green I suggest you try a coat of green paint. This would serve two purposes. Firstly the President would be living in a house that looked politically correct and, secondly, terrorists who only had out of date maps of Washington DC, would never find you. This would kill two birds with one stone.”

The White House was astounded. “Oh boy, just wait until I suggest this to Barry. It saves mega bucks. He’ll love it. So cheap and so neat too. Hey, Grass, you really have gotten some good ideas. Strange for a substance with so little visible energy.”

“Ah, Whitey, now you’re getting the idea. Low energy. Everything green is low on energy so together we could combat all the fuel pollution in the country with just a few cans of paint. Cute, eh?”

The White House was all for it. It really thought they had a winner here. But, as with all government funded projects it wanted to know the cost, especially who to bribe to get the cheapest job.

Grass put its blades into ‘house painting’ mode. After pondering for a few more minutes it asked Whitey, “Do you remember that Irish guy, really green Catholic, who was the boss here from January 1961?”

“You mean John Baby, whose dad was a diplomat?”

“Yeah, that’s the guy. Well he wanted to send all of us Americans to the moon – Oh boy does Joe Public land some real back seat drivers on us! – well Johnny fell for the old Mark Twain theory that the only good rocket scientist is a German rocket scientist. And you know what, Whitey? That made me think. Germans led me to think ‘house painters’ and wasn’t there a famous one back in the thirties? The flag on my tenth hole told me he ended up in a bunker and was never seen again. But rumour has it he retired to St. Andrews in Scotland and fell asleep after his one thousand two hundred and sixty first stroke at the seventeenth hole, and he’s still in the bunker there. Now when you talk house painters, Whitey, you don’t talk just anyone. You talk old Adolph! Whitey, he could double coat the Empire State in three days. He’s your man okay. Shall we go get him?”

“Sure,” Whitey replied, “but I’ve got a problem. If you’ve got no energy and I can’t move at all, how are we going to cross the Atlantic?”

Grass was impressed. “Gee I didn’t know your geography was so good. How come you knew where Scotland was?”

Whitey roared with laughter. “Oh Grass. Don’t you know your Federal history? Ever since Ike got the key to my front door in January 1953 the only subject discussed here has been golf. Hell, Ike even bought an apartment off Queen Liz 2 in a Scottish castle so he could sharpen up his short game. Whenever there were no crises going on he’d snuck of to Balmoral for a quick eighteen holes. He wasn’t missed at first, not until the Fall of 1956 when Adlai Stevenson said something true about him in the presidential campaign and nobody could find him to reply.”

Whitey fell into a reverie. “Boy, did he teach tricky Dickey his trade! Dickey was the guy who told him where Korea was so he could play soldiers again and then ended up in my oval sitting room in 1969 trying to settle a little dispute in Vietnam. Oh those were were fun days, Grass, fun days. But this ain’t getting us to Scotland without energy.”

They were both temporarily stuck for ideas when three men came walking out of the White House and strolled across the lawn, apparently lost in contemplation of matters deeply important to the state and also to each of the three of them. Grass didn’t know them, he never grew fast enough to keep up with re-shuffles. Whitey introduced them. “The tall guy is Barry, my current boss, surely you know him?” Grass knew him, but not the other two. “That’s Joe Biden, Barry’s number two and the other’s John Kerry, Secretary of State. Then Whitey spotted something odd.

“Hey look Grass, Joe and John are discussing something secret with Barry.” They were each swinging bands of beads with Crosses on the end and Barry was examining them closely. He asked Joe first, “This is your secret weapon Joe? Some sort of anti-bugging device? Gee it’s cute, especially the little guy on the end.” John broke in, “No, Sir, these are called rosaries. The beads on them are for counting prayers on.”

“No kidding,” said Barry. “How do you turn them on? Can you reach Moscow with them?”

“No,”said Joe, “They really are for counting prayers and also letting everybody else know we are Catholics. Dual purpose energy savers.” He laughed, but Barry didn’t.

“Joe, Joe baby did you say energy savers?”

“Well yes, but only in the sense that……”

The president crouched the three of them into a grid-iron huddle. “Do you realise we are about to corner the world’s energy abolition technology.” And he just resisted kissing them. “Tell me boys, do they make these things in green? They would be easier to sell if they looked the part.” Joe seemed to think the new humble Pope Francis would love to produce any number Barry wanted provided the money went to feed the starving and housing the homeless.

“Look, I don’t know who this Frankie guy is, Joe, but give him whatever he wants. I want 200 million of these in green. Oh boys, you’ve made my day.”

John coughed, “Just one problem, Sir, Pope Francis is a South American. He’s got the whole of Argentina in his pocket and the Brazilians will do anything for him.”

“Leave him to me John, if he managed to get to the top of the Catholic Church he must be some dealer. I’ll fly over to see him in Spain, (“Italy,” interrupted Joe), yeah, right, and we’ll corner the world’s anti-fuel market. And you say he gives all the dough to the homeless and unemployed ? Oh this gets better, that’s two more of my problems he could solve”….. and they slowly walked out of earshot.

Whitey resumed his chat with Grass. “Guess that leaves Adolph at the seventeenth. Pity. Was he a nice guy?”

“Couldn’t say,” replied Grass, “The flag never told me. But boy wasn’t it great watching our leaders hunkering down for a change and freeing the world from all those terrorists with no energy left to blow people up with. Makes me proud to be bringing up all my little blades Americans.”

I honestly believe That’s how close they’d get in five years! But much worse is the fact that the US would still believe it was the greenest country in the world!!